The Don Quixote PieceScene 5

The menthols were stubbed out. Lucia and Beth sat facing
one another, at the window table, in the cafe, their four
elbows planted, their torsos leaning forward, a tension
betwixt them.

"It has nothing to do with anything but him," Beth
reiterated. She treated Lucia's challenges as baseless,
dismissible, wielding against them her one overworn defense.
"In his eyes fidelity has nothing to do with being true to
me. It has to do with being true to himself. You would have
to do more than merely lure him away from me. You would have
to lure him away from himself. And, as I said, as you know,
I have no doubt that this cannot be done. I know him. I
know what he's gone through. And it's made him stronger than
any pretty face."

Lucia the French girl shook her pretty face. "Do not
make yourself so defensive, my Beth. You say "you" as if I
wanted to seduce the man. This is for what we come here, no,
to discuss these things, to escape all those vapid gossips of
the dance, to converse truly over subjects that merit
discussion. Look, it is just that I am not able to convince
myself that there exists a man like the man you describe. I
know Jacob, too, you know. I know him. And well, while it is
true that I have not read his work in the same manner that
you have read his work, with an equal perspicacity--Yes, I
have read his work. My Beth, whatever person, whatever
artist that is capable of writing with that passion, and is
capable of demonstrating it with such liberality as I see him
demonstrate it to you, my Beth, that person, that artist is
vulnerable to being attracted away from this "equation" of
which you speak. He has imposed upon himself this
discipline, as you call it, in the name of beauty, no? So it
is beauty itself that is his debility, I believe--that can
defeat him. He, in his own words, calls this its paradox,
no? I understood that correctly, no? If I understood this
well, you see, I believe that to ignore this fact is nothing
less than blind denial. Without some evidence, without some
test, all this that you defend is nothing more than ideas--
Groups of words and thoughts. And ideas are not equipped to
resist an alluring combination of facial features, or a skin
vibrant and alive...or...a liquid figure, some liquid figure
that pulses with the heat."

And the two women sat, unmoving, facing one another, at
the window table, in the cafe, their four elbows planted,
their torsos leaning forward. A quiet sparkled as Beth
groped for further rebuttal. But all she had was the one.
All she had was the repeated and reiterated and reworded
faith in Jacob. There was no proof.

Lucia the French girl's flattened mouth creeped toward a
devilish smile. She had won this round.

"You don't really know him," Beth muttered lamely.

"No," Lucia agreed. And then, without quarter, she
added: "But neither do you, I believe."